


Candlelight Gods

by kittymsmith



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Bloodhound Headcanons (Apex Legends), Candles, Canon Non-Binary Character, First Dates, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Humor, Mutual Pining, just add a visit from the old gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24476575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymsmith/pseuds/kittymsmith
Summary: Elliott follows Bloodhound to a waterlogged cabin full of dancing candlelight in the middle of the night because he’s stupid and in love.Not that he’s told them the second part.
Relationships: Bloodhound/Mirage | Elliott Witt, miragehound - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 70





	Candlelight Gods

**Author's Note:**

> Me: this'll make a cute 500 word drabble
> 
> *writes 1800 word oneshot with one of the best titles I've ever come up with* gOd DAmMIt-

“Do I want to know why you have all these candles and why it's so... creepy in here? No? Yeah, probably not."

Their laugh was half lost to the wind coming between the cracks in the boards, long waterlogged and bowing away. The candles flickered so Bloodhound seemed like an old zoetrope animation, jumpy and disjointed but still so fascinating. He almost asked them if they had a zoetrope, it seemed like they would, but was stopped by the low howl leaking through the walls. “Do not worry, Elliott,” they said, pulling out a lighter and setting it to a small stick of incense in a dish hanging from the corner. “They will not come here.”

“What are t-they, again?” He shoved his hands in his pockets. The night was cold for Solace, somewhere in the sixties. Bloodhound, in their full regalia, was unphased.

“Spirits of wind and fire,” they held the lighter, aflame, near the glass of their lenses. He could almost see their eyes behind the black. “Of cold and death. Long do they ride together, till Odin’s last breath.”

“Did you just pull that out of your ass or is that like, from those poetic eddas you told me about?”

They turned toward him. He could definitely see their eyes, not the color but the shape, the crinkling around the corners as a giggle he would have once called un-Hound-like, before he learned how like them it would be to laugh at any and all things, bubbled up through their respirator. “Completely out my ass.”

He smiled, despite the chill and creepy candles and ancient howling death creatures. “It was good.”

“Thank you. It was true, as well. Wolves and ravens both belong to Odin.” They sat on the floor, cross legged, and Elliott dropped before them. The toes of their boots and his sneakers touched. “I find the howls soothing.”

“You’re weird,” he said, and they giggled again. He leaned forward, face in hands, elbows to knees. “Sitting in a rotting swamp house with a bunch of candles telling me death doggie howls are soothing. And burning sage.”

“Keeps the bad spirits away. Usually.”

“I-I’m not sure if I should be more worried that there’s bad spirits around, or that you said _usually_.”

“Yes.” In his mind, they winked as they said it. “May I remind you that I did not force you to come with me.”

“You didn’t.” He’d come to creepy swamp land with them willingly, because he was dumb and in love. He wasn’t sure if the whole love thing was mutual, he’d never brought it up, and it’d been three months of I-guess-were-friends-now so he’d sort of resigned himself to never growing the balls needed to ask. Renee had called him chicken _so_ many times but somehow they just ended up taking platonic walks in the park. He liked their company either way so, he guessed, he would live.

Maybe.

If the death doggies didn’t get him first, since they were chilling outside, staring at him through the cracks. His voice was strained. “Hoooound?”

They put a hand on his quickly, fingerless gloves letting him feel some warmth of their skin. It was a decent distraction. “Don’t fret, _vinur._ They are only curious.”

They were staring _right at him._ At the both of them. Just two. He was tense, but he leaned toward the split between the boards, watching streaks of moonlight come through the trees. The wolves seemed to glow, though there wasn’t enough light for that. Bloodhound put a hand on his arm to warn him before leaning in, face close to his. Their breathing was quiet. They both leaned, watching the wolves, and saw two birds-ravens, Elliott realized, descend from the trees and perch between the ears of the dogs. Bloodhound gasped slightly, leaning in further, Elliott doing the same until they were shoulder to shoulder.

“This is why I brought you here,” they whispered, voice a husk through the filters. “I did not know if it would happen, but Allfather has truly blessed us.”

He, well, he didn’t know what was going on. The wolves were still freaky. They seemed…hungry. The ravens didn’t instill so much worry, but he felt like they knew way more about him than he wanted them to. “Are those, uh…okay are those deadass Geri and Freki?”

They turned their head to him. He became suddenly aware how close they were. “You remembered their names!”

“Heh, of course.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking out at the wolves again. Geri, Freki. Both meaning “the ravenous” or “greedy one”. Words so old the definite meaning had been lost even to Bloodhound. Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory, they were, too, speculation, non definitive meanings to names wrought in stone. When he looked out, he wasn’t sure if he believed any of what Bloodhound was saying, or that it was happening, but he’d always been a little spiritual. “They’re beautiful.”

“War often is,” they said, leaning into the wall. They watched the moonlight shimmer through leaves, like speckles on a puppy’s nose. Candle flames dancing, jerking upward and falling back like storm waves. The warmth he felt wasn’t from the coat, and certainly not from the candles, but the air-between them. The warmth of friends, he thought, ignoring that tug at the corner of his psyche that insisted on more. The wolves did not stare much longer and moved, together, side by side, around the saturated earth. The ravens vanished into night. “To rest before their flight around Midgard,” Bloodhound stated.

“Epic.” He said. The wolves were not alone, a few others joining. They all appeared normal. Maybe the original two were, after all, and there was just something funny in that sage Bloth had burned.

There was a pause, and then Bloodhound moved, sitting cross legged again, further from him than they’d been all night. “Elliott.”

“Bloodhound?” He raised an eyebrow, looking at them. Their fingers fidgeted with their gloves before pulling them off, revealing all their hands, a peppering of white scars that mostly looked to be caused by a certain temperamental corvid. Before he could say anything, they suddenly lifted off their headdress and the cap beneath. They placed them to the side, and he knew they were watching him. Their hair was put up somehow, but once they released it it cascaded out in curls and ringlets. A glint of moonlight said it was burgundy red, and there were braids interwoven in the mass, tucked behind their ears to keep the hair from their face. His mouth felt dry, and he swallowed.

“I feel I can trust you,” they said, voice soft, that even tone they used when teaching the new Legends. He remembered how gentle they were when he joined. “I have told you things and you have not repeated them to a soul. Small things, really, but it still means…a lot that you have kept the knowledge to yourself.”

“R-right,” he pressed his thumb nails to his palms. “I make it a rule to not be a dick.”

“More than can be said for many.”

“You’re too kind.”

“I give credit where it is due-but, but anyway I…” they sighed, “this outing was for more than one reason. More than what we witnessed it…is because I wish to…reveal, myself, um, to you.” They gestured at their face, pausing mid-wrist swing. “Um. Oh, Gods, that sounded a lot less awkward in my head.”

He was too stunned to react, and then he was on his knees, in front of them, disbelieving but eager. “That didn’t sound awkward at all.”

“You’re a liar, _vinur_. But,” they laughed nervously-Bloodhound, nervous! “I appreciate it.” They took a deep breath and bowed their head. First the goggles, then the respirator. When they looked up at him, with their real eyes, biting their real lips, their skin tanned by Solace sun and dusted in freckles, he couldn’t stop himself from gasping.

“You’re gorgeous,” he said immediately.

They smiled, moon cutting their lips into sharp shapes of blue light, and half ducked their head. He caught glimpses of faint scars, and of far starker ones, across their nose, down from one side of their lip, old, white lines of pain turned cracks of beauty. Their voice was so soft. “You are a flatterer, Elliott.”

He sputtered, “nuh uh!”

“What, so I’m not gorgeous?”

He panicked. “No you’re absolutely gorgeous, and stunning and amazing and cute and-and-and,” he stopped, realizing they were looking at him, head propped on a hand casually, though the candlelight shown the blush rampaging over their whole face. They were biting their lip. Elliott felt his whole mind explode. “You did that on purpose.”

They held out their thumb and forefinger, half inch apart. “Just a little.”

He huffed, shoving their shoulder, and they laughed. “You can be an ass, you know.”

“A cute ass?”

“Now you’re just fishing for compliments.”

“You’ll find, Elliott,” they turned so they were on their knees, slowly pushing themself closer to him, so he could see the glint off their blue eye, realizing one was brown, “that I am as good a fisher as I am a hunter.”

He swallowed; voice low, scratchy. “T-that so?”

“It is.” They fidgeted before sliding their warm palms over his. “Would you believe me if…I said the same things about you?”

“I-I’d have a hard time, just, just ‘cause, ‘cause, y’know, ‘cause…” _Cause that means you like me too and I might explode._

“Well, have I ever lied to you?”

“No, you’re a shitty liar even with the mask on.” He gasped and covered his mouth. They laughed.

“You are not wrong, _vinur_. Why do you think I wear it?”

“Wait, is that why?”

“One of a few reasons. Does get in the way of some things.”

“Like what?” He’d asked it as a genuine question, and in response Bloodhound got closer, close enough he could feel their breath on his chin.

“Close your eyes and you’ll find out.”

He’d never closed his eyes faster. The tip of their fingers touched his chin, gliding to the side of his cheek. Their lips were close-so close he could practically feel them, almost-they were right there-

They moved suddenly and kissed his cheek.

His eyes popped open and he looked at them. They started giggling, covering their mouth like that would hide it. He crossed his arms and pouted. “You tease.”

“I never kiss on the first date,” they said, standing.

“This was a date?” He asked, accepting their helping hand with a dumb look on his face.

“Wasn’t it?” They said, hand going limp, ready to slip from his, except he wouldn’t let it. He held their hand tightly, a grin forming in tandem with an idea in his head.

He pulled them closer, leaning in-not quite kissing distance, but their noses almost brushed. “Well you don’t kiss on the first date…but I always kiss on the second.”

They tilted their head, eyes half lidded, lips turned up in mirth. “I’m counting on it.”


End file.
